sage ; d10 ; done

She's a dead dove.

Flying on clipped wings from the comfort of the grave they've dug for her in the backyard. Her decay nourishes the soil as dreams sprout from between the gaps in her ribcage. Sometimes she grinds them up and burns them until they're blackened and coiled deep in her chest ; sometimes she sells them and tells herself that's a step closer to freedom.

She's supposed to care about that. They keep telling her she's supposed to care about that.

If she's being honest, Sage doesn't believe they'll survive Hilda De Ville. Maybe that's why she can't bring herself to give a shit about this little game. They've got white-lies woven into their bones to hold them hostage in their own bodies. The person Sage was meant to be doesn't exist anymore and she doesn't see the point in fighting so hard for someone she'll never know.

Of course this life is far from ideal but who's to say it's any easier on the other side of paradise. Her siblings ask for more faith than Sage has and it's only a matter of time before they realize they bled her dry a while ago. She'll disappoint them, although she loves them to the point of bitter agony, a part of her knows that will never be enough. So full of promise a few years ago, she has grown into someone only good for leaving behind.

Until then it's not so bad to live for their sakes.

Avian keeps those secrets for her. Though it might seem counterintuitive to spill your guts to a parrot who only chews up words to spit them out again, Sage is not a girl renowned for good ideas. Case in point - his stupid fucking name. She was in Two with a new, new name and had just placed second in the spelling bee when a sad sack of pink flesh found its way into her cupped palms.

The definition of that word was fresh on her mind considering it had just lost her persona a shot at elementary school celebrity.

Avian - adjective - Relating to birds.

So yeah, she named her pet bird Bird.

Sage likes to think they're both pretty embarrassed about that.

Their conversations are wonderfully nonsensical, a thousand different sentences sewn together with frayed string. Avi often laughs with Coin's lungs and shouts with Wen's throat. He tells Fable's stories in Suede's voice. Sometimes he'll let out a sigh so full of longing that it was unmistakably Palace's breath. There's a little bit of all of them locked away in that tiny bird brain and it's all that keeps her sane on her grand De Ville adventures.

It's not like Hilda's cruelty is lost on her. She knows better than most that they'll never truly be immortal. Little pieces of them exist in so many minds, all with different names and personalities; even those who became fond of her do not know they loved a person who would never exist. Her first kiss was with a girl who called her Melody. Sage made sure to give that one a life very much like the one she often fantasized about.

She'll admit that particular broken heart was of her own making.

They're simply spread too thin to mean anything anymore. Sage is less of a person than she is a collection of scar tissue stripped of nerve endings. Even if she wanted to be honest there's simply nothing left of the truth. She was called Sage after the home Hilda took her from, defined by the very life she was denied.

And yeah, she could be mad about all of that.

But she's too fucking tired.